The Whale

One entire wall of the North Gallery of the Mystic Seaport Museum displays a whale scratchboard illustration of a Whale by Jos Sances, a California-based artist.  Sances was influenced by black-and-white illustrations for Moby-Dick, which inspired his use of scratchboard as a bold, hands-on medium. 

A type of reverse drawing, the black ink coating is scratched off with a knife, revealing white clay below.  Sances' work includes many illustrations with a social justice theme.  He feels his work reminds viewers of scrimshaw, which sailors etched on whale teeth and bones.

From Sances:  "The eye of . . . Whale confronts us with images of Black enslavement, brutalization, and cultural distortion. A host of images encircle it, including an Abolitionist figure who asks, "AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?" while proffering a racist cartoon caricature and a beautiful sleeping infant, a self-contradictory pair of images."